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My advice would be to take an organized prep course, rather than trying to study on your own.

You could in fact study on your own, by buying some SAT books at Barnes & Noble, but you probably won't. I think you need the structure of going to an actual class every day.
And listening to tapes and lectures and taking practice exams, in a group with other kids.

It's possible to increase your score that much. I have a friend who went from 1900 to 2250 given just a summer to study.

Best advice is to take lots of practice tests. Keep a notebook full of concepts from the questions you miss. A month or so before the test go through that notebook for review. Then try to solve the questions that you missed on practice tests.

The $1,000 you spend on a prep course now is a drop in the bucket, when compared to the cost of attending college for four years.

Given the importance of SAT scores, it would be a very good long term investment.

Consider it as spending $250 a year for each of your four years of college. You will spend that much on beer alone. Right?

Good SATs get you out of the starting gate quickly, in the race of life.

SAT prep courses, like Kaplan, know what they are doing. They have been in the business for 50 years.

Yes, you can indeed study on your own, but you stated in your post that you did not study for the SAT, at all, the first time. (With no explanation as to why). Why would you completely blow off such an obviously important task? Especially if you want to score a 2200 or 2300. If I were your father, given this track record, I would not be at all confident that you would do so this time on your own. (at least, not in the quantity that is needed)

My brother's kid took an organized prep course during the summer, and treated it like a job, going to that office every day to take practice tests. He wound up at Yale.

I am confident that you will break 700 in math the next time. Mere familiarity with the exam will help you. And avoiding careless mistakes. And mastering timing issues. My kid raised his math score by 40 points, with zero studying.

And if you plan on majoring in a non-liberal arts subject, your CR score might not be that important to some schools.

So while I don't know you, my suggestion, while it might seem counter-intuitive to you, is to concentrate on the math part of the exam, not on CR. I don't think it is really possible to study for the CR part of the exam. But for math, you can keep drilling yourself on sample math questions. Math is easier to study for. It is a much more "concret" subject. And your CR score indicates that you are more math oriented.

^Personally, I don't think a prep course is necessary. My brother took one and his score barely changed. Three of my cousins self-studied and are at Harvard, UPenn (Wharton) and Princeton. I self-studied and my scores increased significantly.

If you take some sort of group class then you will be learning areas that might not be what you need help in most. I would advise either self-study or a tutor.

@ "Yes, you can indeed study on your own, but you stated in your post that you did not study for the SAT, at all, the first time. (With no explanation as to why). Why would you completely blow off such an obviously important task? Especially if you want to score a 2200 or 2300. If I were your father, given this track record, I would not be at all confident that you would do so this time on your own. (at least, not in the quantity that is needed)"

first, i've heard many SAT classes are a waste of money and time.. from over 15 people.
im definitely not going to consider it because i looked into it in the past.

second, don't just assume everything is dandy on my side of the situation and assume im just lazy and that i didn't want to study and "blow it off". i don't have to give an explanation why in my post but since you're asking for it: there was a family emergency the month before it and that's why i didn't study prior. third, unlike you who, as you said, wouldn't be confident in my abilities if you were my father (which sounds ridiculous in my mind for any father to say to their child), my father is always confident in me.
don't assume, it's a good thing to learn.

thanks for the suggestion though.
focusing on my math score sounds like a good idea.

Yes! I think it possible since you are giving yourself the whole summer. True story:
Last summer (in between soph and junior years) I took the Kaplan SAT course. I had only been casually studying up to that point. and I never took a practice test. I took their diagnostic test and got a 1820 and CR was definitely my worst subject (580). The course ended in September, and in December SAT I got a 2100+! So the Kaplan course is pretty good IMO. After December, I've been taking a lot of practice tests and scored 2250+ on many of them. I took the March SAT yesterday, and I'm really hoping for a 2300+ because I feel like I did really well. But i know I missd 2 math questions so I'm down to 760M
Oh yeah and I got ~220 for my PSAT. So I better have gotten better than that on the March
Books:
Once you start scoring high in math (650+), get Dr. Chung's book. Although a lot of the problems are not on the SAT, way more IS. Yesterday there were so many questions identical to some of his.

Definitely possible. Went from an 1800~ on my first practice test, to a 2270 on the January SAT. Work hard, and work intelligently (IE quality over quantity, better to do one practice test with full concentration gaining as much as possible during review, than do five practice tests half-assed and gain nothing). You'll definitely get there.

I don't know why so many people are saying no. I took my first one with no prep and got a 1710 (CR - 550, M - 640, W - 520). I took 4 practice tests and a princeton review course and my practice test scores each went up 80+ each time. They ranged from 1840 - 2070. I took the march SAT yesterday and I think I got about a 2100. A 390 point increase. I think if you set your mind to it and study hard (I did about one or two 25 minute sections a day), it is possible without a doubt.

Yeah its possible. My friend did exactly that. The only thing is if you can figure out your weakness and work on it. The fact that people increase scores 200-300+ points means that its more of a skills test which you can achieve. But it wont be easy.

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